Unofficial news and tips about Google

February 19, 2009

Custom Gmail Themes

Until Gmail adds an option to create your own themes, you can edit the colors from Gmail's default theme. Go to the Themes section from Gmail's settings, click on "Choose your own colors" and select your favorite colors for Gmail's background, links, text messages, navigation links and more.

Your colors are saved when you finish editing the theme and the changes are added to Gmail after you press "Save". If you don't like your theme, you can always choose one of the 31 pre-defined thems or click on "Reset" to go back to the default theme.

"Companies that use Google Apps won't see the options for themes yet, but we're working on getting themes to you too," mentions Gmail's blog.

http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2007/03/how-google-desktop-ranks-search-results.html. You mentioned that google desktop ranks documentsbased on date/time of creation. Is it still true? Can you please tell me where can I find more information about ranking/ordering optionsof Google Desktop ?

Off topic, but yeah you're right. The Google Talk Gadget has disappeared from the US Google Talk page. Even stranger is that it has a different screenshot of the client now. Will they _ever_ update it? I would love to have Gmail chat's features in the client! The international pages remain as before, with the link to the gadget. Incidentally, their versions of the client don't even have file transfer or voicemail...

Here's what I suspect it will happen with Google Talk. The desktop client for Windows will be discontinued and probably the Flash gadget too. The main interface will be the one from Gmail, although GTalk will be available in most Google services from Calendar to Reader and Docs. Those who want a desktop client will probably download something like the Google Talk Labs Edition or create an app shortcut in Chrome. Just a supposition.

It's disappointing that they enabled the theme engine on Google Apps accounts, but didn't include the theme settings on the settings page. I prefer the classic GMail theme, but there's no way to revert to it, that I know of.

@pihentagyYou can't.The E-mail background is like a "whole new page".Interfering with it could interfere with certain e-mails.

But on the missing thing, there is something missing, which i think someone never really thought out before axing it: changing link colour for sidebars contents.I had a darkish blue theme, with blue links, not impossible to read, but the fact is, it is still there.

Also, shame you couldn't add an image.And border control would have been nice too. (could easily be added under an Advanced link at the right side of the colour picker)

Us lowly Google apps users don't even have the original theme support that was released to other gmail users quite some time ago, so I don't think I'll be holding my breath for custom colors any time soon :(.

unfortunately, you do not allow us to change the "dimming" of the background colour for read messages :( example, if i set the background colour for messages to be white, then 'read' messages show up with a background of #e6e6e6. i want to be able to change that, too.

Yeah, that was bugging the hell out of me as well.I had a dark theme setup, pretty much to mimic the Terminal theme, but i couldn't due to the highlight colours.

This is exactly why i wish you could do some border-management as well, that would make things perfect, no need to have that additional brightness for highlights.But whether they will allow advanced customization or not... looks kinda unlikely, especially since they have preset themes created by specific people.But custom themes aren't public, so they don't need to worry about potentially bad themes.And if they really wanted to, they could choose certain themes if they are to the "Google standard".

You can also use the Firefox add-on Stylish, and use themes over at http://userstyles.org. You can change the appearance of any site by applying CSS. There are tons of themes for gmail (and other sites) that modify the entire site or just apply tweaks. You can build your own.

The problem with people who have Internet Explorer 8/7:The problem is that whenever they sign up and get the G-mail ID, they sometimes want to change the theme, they go to 'Settings', but find that 'Themes' is not visible, but when the buy Internet Explorer 6, 'Themes' is perfectly visible.... though Internet Explorer 8/7 is faster, Internet Explorer 6 is a little zoomed in tan the others.

all i want to know, is how we change the backgrounds? is there something wrong with gmail? i just signed up and i got an email from the gmail ppl saying i can customize my account, but when i clicked on the email, i just got a copy of the email on my desktop

Please help. My Gmail "Message Bob" background will not change when going in to create my own theme. I had the Background (Black) with the Text (Blue #32aac6), and the Snippet (Light Gray). I clicked on the Themes and then clicked on Create my on Theme just to refresh my memory of the custom Blue color I created, but never changed anything. Now it's always this off whitish gray color that I can't change at all. I've reset the colors numerous times, and then created the same theme, but I still can't change the off whitish gray color that hurts my eyes. I have Restarted Firefox as well, thinking that would solve the problem, Still nothing. Any suggestions?

I am having trouble changing my background in Gmail. I usually have it set to darker colors under the custom theme. I change it periodically, and am ready for a different color, but when I change the theme colors and click Save, nothing happens. I refresh the page, and it stays the old colors. I go to the custom theme changing-page, and it has the new colors up, but the email is still the old colors. It also won't change to any of the preset Gmail backgrounds. I don't know what's going on - any ideas, please?

I am also having trouble changing background colors for the email subject lines. I have a photos as the background-background. But the email lists usually appears gray. Once I got it to change to yellow (bleh) or a purple. Other colors didn't work.